The American Gut Project examines bacteria in stomach and seeks human and pet volunteers

Posted December 18, 2012

Ever wondered who's living in your gut, and what they're doing?
Our trillions of microorganisms outnumber our own cells by as many
as 10 to one in and on our own bodies, and do important jobs
ranging from chewing up the food we eat to building up the immune
system.

Researchers at leading institutes around the world including the
Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical
Sciences (CVM) are collaborating on a new project where everyone is
encouraged to participate and find out what type of microbiome, or
bacteria, are in their gut. The American Gut project, led by the
Human Food Project, builds on the work of previous studies,
including the five-year, $173-million National Institutes of
Health-funded Human Microbiome Project, and provides a way for the
general public, their kids, and pets to participate.

"This is an important study that revolves around everyone
participating," said Jan Suchodolski, a clinical assistant
professor in the Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences at
the CVM. "Unlike previous projects, anyone can participate,
allowing us to examine the microbiome from a wide variety of people
and develop an understanding of how diet and lifestyle affect
microbes."

The gut microbiome has been linked to many diseases, including
obesity, cancer, and inflammatory bowel disease: interestingly, all
these diseases are much more common in Western populations. "We
should start thinking about diets not only from the perspective of
what we should eat, but what we should be feeding our entire
supraorganism," said Jeff Leach, founder of the Human Food Project
and co-founder of American Gut.

"This project truly brings together a dream team of microbiome
investigators," said Rob Knight, an associate professor with the
BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder and
a co-founder of American Gut. "And building a framework where we
can join together to understand the microbiome is critical."

The project builds on the success team members have had
previously in other areas such as examining the microbiome of
pets. Previous studies, for example, described the gut
microbiomes of dogs and cats of different ages and sizes. The
researchers of these previous studies found that every animal has a
unique microbial ecosystem that is partially influenced by diet and
environment. To help with the examination of companion
animals' microbiomes contributors to the American Gut project are
urged to bring their pets with them to participate.

"By being able to collect this massive dataset in healthy pet
animals, it will allow us to identify differences in gut microbiota
between healthy and diseased dogs and cats, which, ultimately, will
lead to better treatment modalities for our furry companions,"
Suchodolski said.

Since companion animals are living in close quarters with humans
as family members, Suchodolski said there is potential to transfer
parts of the microbiome between humans and pets.

"The American Gut project provides an excellent platform to
study the microbiomes of humans as well as animals, because it is a
multi-center collaborative study including the leading experts in
the microbiome field. The results of this study will be made openly
available which will drastically advance the research in this
field," Suchodolski said.

Participants in the project include many of the key players in
the Human Microbiome Project including Dirk Gevers, group leader of
microbial systems and communities at the Broad Bnstitute of Harvard
and MIT, Joseph Petrosino, director of the Alkek Center for
Metagenomics and Microbiome Research at Baylor College of Medicine,
and Curtis Huttenhower, an assistant professor at the Harvard
School of Public Health; key players in the Earth Microbiome
Project including Janet Jansson, professor and senior staff
scientist at the University of California at Berkeley and Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory, Jack Gilbert, assistant professor at
the University of Chicago and staff scientist at Argonne National
Laboratory, and J. Gregory Caporaso, assistant professor at
Northern Arizona University and Argonne National Laboratory; and
other experts on the human genome, microbiome, microbiome in human
disease susceptibility and evolution including Ruth
Ley, assistant professor at Cornell University, George Church,
founder of the Personal Genome Project and Professor at Harvard
Medical School, Rob Dunn an associate professor at North Carolina
State University and Founder of Yourwildlife.org, Jeroen Raes,
professor at the Flemish Institute of Biotechnology (VIB),
Brussels, Jonathan Eisen, professor at the University of
California, Davis, Susan Holmes, professor at Stanford University,
Ramnik Xavier, chief of gastroenterology at the Massachusetts
General Hospital, director for the study of Inflammatory Bowel
Disease and senior associate member of the Broad Institute, Kelly
Swanson, associate professor at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, and Jan Suchodolski, clinical assistant professor
at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine &
Biomedical Sciences.

Unlike traditional projects, funded by grant applications to the
government or private foundations, American Gut will be funded by
donations from the public. Please visit http://www.indiegogo.com/americangut
to learn more about the project and participation.